


I'll Stay

by CCs_World



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: A lot more crying than kissing, Angst, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, Inferiority Complex, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 11:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13212672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CCs_World/pseuds/CCs_World
Summary: Merle's gotten into a nasty habit of dying. Davenport wants to make sure he's doing okay.





	I'll Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops this was a tumblr drabble that got pretty long. I liked it enough that I decided to post it here.

It was the beginning of cycle 89–-the first night of the cycle. Davenport walked from the bridge to the deck. He was on the hunt, and he was determined to find one certain crew member and have a nice long talk.

It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.

“Hey.”

Merle looked up from his cup of coffee to see his Captain sit down beside him on the deck of the Starblaster. “Oh. Hi,” he said. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Not much.” Davenport smiled. “I’m just here to check on you.”

Merle laughed. “Why do you need to check on me?”

Sighing, Davenport folded his hands in his lap. “I want to make sure you know you’re… very important.”

“Well, yeah,” Merle chuckled, “I’m the one who chats with the bad guy.”

“I don’t just mean that,” Davenport said. “That’s not–-that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t… I don’t  _want_  you to have to throw away this experience. You’ve died the most out of all of us now and--well, Merle, it gets very lonely without you here.”

That made Merle actually stare at Davenport. “Huh?”

“Do you–do you not believe that?” And Davenport was staring at Merle now, disbelief clear under his huge mustache and creasing his heavy brow. “Merle, you are literally the embodiment of our team’s morale. You’re–-the  _symbol_  of our positivity. You bring us hope.”

Davenport watched as Merle’s face switched rapidly through dozens of emotions–confusion, disbelief, concern, denial,  _fear–-_ and finally coming to rest on a calm facade of apathy. “Huh,” he said, the same as before but with a different reflection, one laced this time not with confusion but with some semblance of what Davenport hoped was acceptance and understanding.

A smile hesitantly crossed Davenport’s face. “You. You understand, right?” he said, because he wanted Merle to understand that he was  _wanted._

Unfortunately for Davenport, he didn’t exactly get what he wanted, because it took a long, slow moment for his words to sink in and then Merle started laughing. It was wild and hysterical and it wasn’t anything like the laughter Davenport had heard at the beginning of their adventure, the early cycles where everything was just an adventure, they would be home the next cycle, the next cycle, the next cycle. By now it was just a hollow echo of the hope he’d once heard, the joy drained from it from spending too long in an office room with a grey, torn-apart man. It made Davenport flinch away from the dwarf beside him, unused to the terrible sound.

“Ha!” Merle finally shouted, his voice sharp. “It’s a good joke, Cap. I mean. I’m probably the least important person on this ship. You drive the thing. Lucretia keeps a record  _with both hands_  of what happens so people know what we’ve done. Taako cooks and casts badass spells, right along with Lup, who’s the jokester. She’s the funny one. Magnus has everyone’s backs, he fights, he punches bad guys. Barry Bluejeans is the scientist, he does all the weird nerd studies-– _he’s_  more important than me, and he’s more bland than the white T-shirt he wears every day! All I do is talk to plants and cast shitty healing spells, which don’t even matter because even if we die we just come back a year later! I don’t matter, Dav, you can just say it.”

“No! Merle, no, you can’t just–-say those things about yourself, you’re going to destroy the bond engine!” Davenport cried. “You don’t–-you don’t even know how much we care about you! How much  _I_  care about you!” He turned to the dwarf, clutching at his broad shoulders, wanting desperately to shake some sense into him. “You don’t know how terrible it’s been when you’re not here! Nobody gets anything done. We don’t have any good  _jokes._ We don’t have any stupid Pan services, our flower garden is dying, Fischer is dim, the bond engine doesn’t work right. We need you, we–- _want_  you, Merle.” He stared right into Merle’s beautiful hazel eyes, which were now wet and shiny with unshed tears of disbelief. “I  _love_  you,” the Captain finished, more sincere than he’d thought he’d be able to say it.

“You–?” Merle started, then cut himself off, his eyebrows creasing and his eyes narrowing as he tried to piece together Davenport’s words. “You  _love_  me?”

“Yes-–fuck, yes,” Davenport said, repeating the word as if it would just up and  _fix_  everything. “ _Please,_  Merle, you  _can’t_  leave us again. You just can’t. I don’t think-–I don’t think we’d be able to take another cycle without you. I don’t think  _I’d_  be able to.”

“Wait,” Merle said. His eyes were still narrowed, confused. “You.  _Love_. Me.”

“I-–do I have to say it again?” Davenport told him, desperate. “Yes. Of course. Of  _course_  I love you. There is nothing there I couldn’t love. There’s-–it’s everything about you, Merle, I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know how to tell you.”

Davenport, as it turned out, didn’t have to tell Merle. Because Merle just up and confirmed it, lunging forward of a sudden to crush their mouths together in a clumsy imitation of a kiss. Davenport pressed into it, closing his eyes, bringing his hands up to Merle’s jaw to cup it, to feel the wiry dark beard. The cleric tasted of herbs and coffee and vinegar. He tasted like tears and fear and uncertainty and wonder.

It was beautiful, Davenport thought in the single moment they touched, how two people could breathe life into each other’s lungs with a kiss. And breathing in the air from Merle’s lungs into his own was like breathing in the air of all the trees of all the worlds. It was  _right_  somehow.

Merle pulled away first, but he didn’t move far. They sat there, Davenport still cupping Merle’s face, breathing hard. Davenport imagined himself still breathing in that air.

Merle was crying. It was soft and subtle but the way his shoulders moved and the way his breath caught was telling enough. Davenport moved a thumb to brush away one of the tears.

“Don’t leave us again,” the Captain begged. “Please. Don’t leave me.”

Merle stared at him for a long, long time. His hazel eyes still welled over with tears as he searched Davenport’s face. Finally, though, he answered. It was soft, and it was rough, but it was big and perfect and wonderful. “Okay,” he said, and he smiled. “I’ll stay with you. Just for this cycle, I’ll stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is @themindofcc!! Check me out!!


End file.
